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Topic: Lack of focus and concentration (Read 2608 times)

My oldest is 15 and usually quite lovely with the odd teenage growl in between (usually aimed at her sister). As she's grown though I've realised that what I thought was laziness seems to be an inability to focus. She's extremely academic, but the issue comes on basic tasks or things that don't intrigue her - she can easily take 5 times longer than anyone else for things, and actually ends up quite frustrated and upset herself at how long things take. She's very easily distracted.

I don't think she's got any particular condition though did read up to see that a few deficiencies can cause a lack of ability to focus (and coincidentally these can also link in with eczema, which she suffers badly from).

Any tips on how to help her? I've previously scolded her for always being last / so late etc but am now starting to feel guilty that she just really can't help herself.

Silky x

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A positive mental attitude may not solve all your problems but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort"

She sounds a lot like my eldest daughter and she's at university now and managing brilliantly in every way. I think that whether there are issues or not children have to learn strategies to be able to deal with stuff in their lives effectively, whether that's by using a diary or setting reminders on their phones.

I do think that some kids just dither when what they need to get ready for is not important to them. Setting off on holiday 30 minutes later might not make a difference to them but for the driver it can mean hitting rush hour traffic. My daughter thought 'we're leaving at 3pm' meant that she should appear at 3pm. Then she still needed to do her hair, find her phone, go to the toilet and get her bags from her room. She drove me mad so I used to tell her that we were leaving half an hour before we were.

I was a lot like this as a teenager and still am to some extent as like LAK says when I'm given a time eg meet at 7.30pm that is the time I work to. Instead I now set myself a time like 6.30pm so that I leave the house on time and allow for traffic etc.

There are lots of techniques for improving attention (I tried several when studying until I found a couple that work for me) but it's hard to get into these if you've things on your mind so tackling stuff first helps so there are less distractions.

Like all of us - we tend to tackle the tasks we enjoy first and then drag our feet over the boring things (I must get my accounts done at some point being the classic example of my avoidance task!) Incentives work well for me - eg if I get my accounts done and out of the way I can go for a run, have a glass of wine....

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Sometimes when you give up on someone, its not because you don't care but because you realise that they don't.

I myself have one and work now head up the learning support for students in further education and often come across it.

Your daughter will have her own strategies to cope with it without even realising it, but these will become harder to implement when it is an area of subject that she is simply not interested in.

Luke my son is severely dyslexic and also academically bright - but only in subjects of interest and his processing speed slows down considerably when he isn't interested and he does become frustrated.

I read a book on attention deficit disorder and there were far too many things on there that I recognised in me, never mind Kiera. (Ie I can focus on one thing to the point of obsession, but then have the attention of a goldfish for anything outside of this). Unfortunately the book gave labels but no strategies...perhaps I have to buy volume 2 for that?

Silky x

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A positive mental attitude may not solve all your problems but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort"

yeah I think ADHD or ADD symptoms are so wide, and the label is too readily available and often misdiagnosed, I certainly as does L have many of the symptoms associated with this.

If concentration is a problem generally, chewing gum helps Luke, music helps a lot of people- diagnoses often needed of some kind to allow ear phones and music in class, stress balls to squeeze etc can work.

If she has a problem with it when her exams approach it would be worth seeing their senco well before as if anything you discover helps it will need to be recognised well in advance as her 'normal way of working', it is likely that her brain is either slow processing to boring stuff, or she simply isn't interested enough to engage - very frustrating for both of you! xx

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